While it is scarcely easy to tell what the story is, it would seem to be the case that most of what does come to the market at the moment is because of some sort of financial disaster.

If the need is to sell, like it or not, sooner rather than later, the fact of the matter is that for as long as prices continue to fall, those who hold out for an an out of date price are hung by their own petard.

The asking price for a property on my short list fell from €155,000 to €35,000 when a "financial institution" got rid of the previous auctioneer who foolishly held out for the unavailable jackpot, for years on end but to no avail.